One of our highest conviction views this year so far is that subordinated debt issued by southern-European banks is an attractive place to be invested. We are seeing bottom-up improvement, helped by regulatory zeal that still works in favour of bondholders versus shareholders, as well as a very strong technical picture.

In Spain we believe that the system as a whole is ripe for a rapid acceleration of real estate asset disposals by the local banks. We saw early signs of this trend in 2017, when Banco Santander and BBVA closed on large-scale transactions to remove the real estate risk from their balance sheets. We are of the view that this trend is not specific to these two names, but will spill over to the rest of the local banks.

In Italy we see the recovery as less-systemic and wide-spread versus that of Spain; nevertheless, the top two players have in our view improved sufficiently enough to turn the page in their credit recovery stories too, even if the challengers in Italy still have work to do.

From a regulatory point of view, there is a strong impetus to tackle the still high stack of bad loans in the periphery. Even without official targets, we see all Italian banks (bar UniCredit, which is already one step ahead) coming out of full-year 2017 reporting periods with updated three-year targets to halve the total stock of bad loans. This is quite a change in narrative versus the previous tone from local bank managers, and there is little doubt (in our minds) that this is a result of a close interaction with the central regulators as of late.

Broadly speaking, we have reached a turning point in the recovery cycle in Spanish (and partially Italian) banking systems. At the face of a stringent regulator, we reasonably expect that on one hand, the progress in credit health is solid enough to justify an overweight position, while on the other we still see ample room for balance sheet improvement. Therefore, unlike most northern-European banks, we continue to expect that the improving health of these financial institutions continues to accrue more to the benefit of creditors versus that of shareholders.

This means that from an investing point of view, we are very comfortable taking subordinated credit risk in the two markets. We continue to see the combination of a) a very strong technical picture in the asset sub-classes and b) the rapid improvement in fundamentals as not properly reflected in bond yields (versus comparable core European peers).

As always, good active management and strong issuer and credit selection will be key to optimising total returns in this space.

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The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) triggered fundamental changes to how the financial services sector operates. A slew of legislative frameworks ensued across most developed markets in an effort to prevent such a scenario from happening again. In the following years, the sector was subject to a plethora of new regulatory directives and frameworks on a global, regional and local scale. The common theme was ever higher capital requirements; the difference was how these would be met.

Fast-forward 10 years and most major global economies are in recovery mode (with varying degrees of activity picking up and unemployment falling). But the economic pain that followed the GFC is not forgotten – especially by the financial regulators. New and stricter rules require banks to hold ever more capital; it seems that each time the capital target is hit, the goal post is moved further away. From a credit investor point of view, this perpetuates a goldilocks scenario in bank credit: bank fundamentals are improving, but a large-scale redistribution of excess capital back to shareholders is constantly delayed due to the need to reach each new milestone, lowering the risk in bank credit.

As per the above, we are still in a regulatory convergence mode, and the end game is not yet in sight. What is certain is that banks’ fundamental profiles have strengthened significantly in the meantime. Most institutions now hold three times as much high quality capital compared to 2007, but this is not reflected in bond valuations. The spread on the junior-most capital layers of bank debt (the riskiest type) is five times more than senior unsecured bank credit (the safer layer), compared to just two times more in 2007. In terms of annual returns, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Contingent Capital index achieved 5.8% in 2014, 6.9% in 2015, 7.3% in 2016 and 10.9% over 2017-to-date. The handsome yields on offer are also higher than bank equity, but with a lower volatility.*

As well as offering an attractive return profile, junior bank credit tends to have little discernible correlation to ‘traditional’ fixed income credits, as it is positively correlated to inflation and negatively correlated to interest rates. This offers investors significant diversification benefits using a building block fixed income approach.

Overall we believe that bank credit offers an excellent solution for those income investors that can look through short-term volatility and focus on annual total returns. As always, issuer and structure selection are key to avoid losses and capture the best income opportunities. At Kames we have a long history of successfully avoiding the losers in our high yield franchise, while our team combines over 30 years of fundamental bank analysis and research.

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Banco Popular’s equity and subordinated bondholders have been wiped out today. To come to this end, the EU’s Single Resolution Board (SRB) has exercised its power to resolve the Spanish bank after the ECB stating last night that the lender is ‘failing or likely to fail’. The exact mechanics follow a €9.1bn provisioning and capital shortfall being identified which necessitated the writing down of equity and AT1, as well as conversion of T2 debt into Shares of Banco Popular while simultaneously transferring that equity to Banco Santander for a total consideration of €1.

Some market participants have surely been taken aback this morning by the abrupt and radical way of dealing with a failing financial institution. After all, this is the first time when the relevant resolution authorities apply the widely-advertised Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) rules so in essence this is the first real-world test of the new playbook. As a reminder the BRRD was put in place a little over three years ago with an explicit target to limit market and public sector implications that have in the past ensued from a failing systemic financial institution.

In that respect, albeit relatively early to say, we can observe that the first attempt of breaking (or at least loosening) the bank-sovereign nexus seems to have been a moderate success. At the time of writing, the yield on the 10-year Spanish government bonds has hardly reacted to the event. In addition, not only are there no early signs of a broader market fall-out, both within the AT1 subset as well as across peripheral banks, but the broader market tone is actually constructive, with peripheral bank AT1s leading the gains.

The muted to positive market reaction to what many feared would be a catastrophe for a nascent asset class only one year ago illustrates several key facts; 1) investors are now much better educated on the risks and mechanics of the AT1 instrument 2) the regulators have come some way to address broader market concern regarding risks in these securities and 3) the strict application of the new resolution tools gives confidence that these are not just on paper but will actually be applied as intended in a uniform way.

That last point is very important in my view in restoring the ability to price risk in future similar instances and should reduce risk premia across the capital structure going forward. We still have fresh memories of widely diverging approaches in what looked like similar instances in the past (SNS Reaal, ING/ABN/KBC bailouts, Monte Paschi). It may well be too soon to say that these examples are surely a thing of the past, but for the time being the market seems to be taking exactly that view.

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For Professional Investors only and not to be distributed to or relied upon by retail clients.

The opinions presented are those of Kames Capital fund managers as at the time of publishing and may change as subsequent conditions vary. They are not intended to be relied upon as a forecast, research or investment advice, and are not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt any investment strategy. Companies mentioned may not necessarily be held in any of Kames Capital funds. The information and opinions contained in these pieces are derived from proprietary and non proprietary sources deemed by Kames Capital to be reliable, are not necessarily all inclusive and are not guaranteed as to accuracy. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the listener/viewer.

This site is not intended for use by any US persons (being residents of the United States of America or partnerships or corporations organised under the laws of the United States of America or any state, territory or possession thereof), who are excluded from the content in this site.

For Professional Investors only and not to be distributed to or relied upon by retail clients.

The opinions presented are those of Kames Capital fund managers as at the time of publishing and may change as subsequent conditions vary. They are not intended to be relied upon as a forecast, research or investment advice, and are not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt any investment strategy. Companies mentioned may not necessarily be held in any of Kames Capital funds. The information and opinions contained in these pieces are derived from proprietary and non proprietary sources deemed by Kames Capital to be reliable, are not necessarily all inclusive and are not guaranteed as to accuracy. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the listener/viewer.

This site is not intended for use by any US persons (being residents of the United States of America or partnerships or corporations organised under the laws of the United States of America or any state, territory or possession thereof), who are excluded from the content in this site.